


Hard to Please

by Jennifer-Oksana (JenniferOksana)



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Gen, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 05:38:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5731420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenniferOksana/pseuds/Jennifer-Oksana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cristina and Hahn continue their quarrel over at Joe's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hard to Please

So apparently, Hahn didn't do confrontations at the hospital. Oh, no. She did them at Joe's, because confronting your problem resident outside of work was totally, totally better.

Okay, maybe Hahn hadn't done as much confronting as Cristina, but the point was, they were confronting now. And it should have totally not happened at Joe's, in front of everyone.

That was the point. That was all.

"I don't know what the hell your problem is, but you are not going to steal my career from me," Cristina snarled, folding her arms and doing her best Bailey-style glower. "If I have to, I will go over your head with this. I'll poison your coffee. I will turn Bailey against you. Whatever I have to do, but I'm going back into an OR for cardio-thoracic surgery."

Hahn stood there, completely unimpressed. "Christ, they raise 'em arrogant at Seattle Grace," she answered.

"Do you think that I went into cardio for the fun of it?" Cristina asked. "Because I can tell you, if you spent a surgery letting me practice medicine, you might finally learn something about me."

"I know plenty about you," Hahn replied, her usual expression of complete boredom on her face. "Ambitious, talented, just enough brighter than the other children to get away with the attitude. Desperate need to please."

Cristina rolled her eyes. "Tell me something I haven't heard from the eighth grade on," she snapped.

"You and Grey would probably be happier together than any other long-term relationship you could dream up," Hahn said with a rolling shrug. "Also, Shepherd's pretty as hell, a good surgeon, and seems to be a good friend, but I wouldn't trust him with my inner life, either."

Long pause. Long, long pause. "You can tell me something about my best friend that not even Bailey would have the balls to tell me, but you won't tell me why you're keeping me out of cardio," Cristina said slowly. "I think you don't want me in your OR because we could totally end up having sex in it afterward. No matter what you said about not being into girls."

Hahn's eyes narrowed and her mouth got all tight. Oh, _sna-ap._ Cristina tilted her head, and then turned to Joe, who was listening but doing a good job pretending he wasn't.

"I want a rum and coke," she ordered.

"On it," Joe said, hustling away.

"So," Cristina said, turning back to Hahn with a respectful smirk, because Hahn totally found her sexy, and that meant Hahn probably thought she had some talent in the OR, because Hahn didn't strike her as an Asian fetishist or the kind to think with her metaphorical dick. "Can I get in your OR?"

"I am not interested -- either in you, or in becoming a statistic," Hahn snarled. "Seattle Grace is getting this reputation as the place you go to be driven out of medicine by twenty-five year old interns."

Cristina chuckled. "Hey, only...most of our attendings have screwed interns and/or residents. Sometimes the interns screw residents instead," she said. "And if you were really so worried about it, you wouldn't have signed that contract."

Joe returned with her rum and coke, and Hahn took up glowering again as Cristina took it and passed him a five.

"It's not the attendings that have me worried. It's the being driven out of my career by obnoxious residents who think they know what they're doing while watching the pretty boy twins waltz around obliviously," Hahn replied.

Cristina snorted. "See, you miss an important point," she said. "The only people I want to be driven out of medicine are the pretty boy twins. We could replace them with people who don't prey on Meredith's psyche to make themselves feel better."

A bitter, half-annoyed chuckle from Hahn. "And yet everyone except the twins seems in more danger," she said.

"Hey, sue me if I have more taste than to fuck McDreamy or McSteamy," said Cristina airily. "I'm just saying."

Hahn rolled her eyes. "You even have childish code names for them," she said. "Forgive me if I don't trust your promises to maintain professionalism."

"Oh, whatever, you're just mad because no one has asked you to join our reindeer games," Cristina said, almost biting through her tongue. Had Joe spiked her fucking drink? She'd just sassed Hahn. Hahn who could take away her dreams out of bitter spite.

"Oh, you'd be so wrong about that," Hahn said. "The one you call McSteamy tried and tried very hard to induct me into the club."

Cristina busted up. She couldn't help it; it was just the image of McSteamy and Hahn naked, going at it, that was. Oh, so wrong. So very funny. Like, in her head, McSteamy was pumping away and saying shit like, "who's your daddy?" while Hahn checked her watch and suggested she get on top to make it end faster.

"Something funny?" Hahn inquired flatly.

"No," Cristina said, biting down on her tongue and trying not to choke on the laughing. Because in her head, McSteamy had done the pimp butt-slap thing and Hahn had yawned. "Not at all, one hundred percent nothing funny, sir. I mean, ma'am, I mean...fuck."

Hahn folded her arms. "And what do I do when I'm having sex in your head, Yang?"

"Yawn," Cristina said, before putting both hands over her mouth in horror. Bailey, the Chief, and Jesus could not save her now. Oh, God, she was going to have to drop out of medicine and work at Starbucks while living with her mother.

No. No. Meredith would kick out Izzie to let her live in the Hostel of Residents. Cristina was pretty sure of that.

"I yawn?" Hahn asked, half cross-eyed.

Well, what the hell. At least when the other baristas asked why a Stanford PhD was slinging lattes, there would be a glorious story of How Cristina Lost Her Dreams to share. "Well, I imagine you'd find McSteamy's player act as boring as I do, so he'd be like--" and Cristina mimicked him as best as she could, "And you were like, looking at your watch."

Hahn stood there. "So you can make fun of authority figures," she said. "I wondered."

Cristina shifted. "Why the hell does that matter?" she asked. "God, Meredith said something like that, and everyone is on my ass and I just want to do what I'm good at without hearing everyone's goddamn issues dumped on me because I don't have them."

"Why do you care about my problems with you?" Hahn asked.

"Because you can keep me off cardio. This is a problem if I am going to be a cardio-thoracic surgeon," Cristina said.

"Yeah, but it's more than that with you," Hahn said, gesturing to Joe at the bar.

"I didn't do anything to piss you off!" Cristina said. "You know? I know I'm not, like, Izzie. Which is good, because I don't make life decisions based on drunk sex, because hi, that's stupid. But you decided I'm not good enough even before I gave you a reason to piss you off, and that doesn't make sense. I know how to bite my tongue and do what I have to do."

Long pause from Hahn as Joe returned with her beer. "Walk with me, Yang," she said lightly in a tone of command.

Cristina walked. "Yes?" she asked.

Hahn sat down at a booth. "Sit down, Yang."

"Fine," Cristina said. And sat down across from Hahn, pissed off and confused and tired of people dicking her around. Apparently it wasn't enough now to do what people wanted so Cristina could get past their roadblocks. Apparently now she had to do it the way they liked.

God, things were easier with Burke. He just wanted domestic, happier Cristina. That was in the realm of the possible. Hahn wanted something inexplicable, and that was just unacceptable.

"What would you do if there were no grown-ups to please?" Hahn asked. "If there was no one giving you orders. What would you do?"

Cristina glowered. "What do you mean? What would I do, personal life? Would I go walk across the street and start giving free bypasses for the hell of it, would I do?" she asked. "That's a stupid question."

"You can't even imagine what you would do if there wasn't someone to impress," Hahn said.

"And I don't understand the human condition, either," Cristina said viciously. What the hell ever. She had lost with Hahn, there was no winning here, so what the hell? It felt a little good, being this honest. "You think I didn't get this entire stupid-ass lecture from Burke? Hell, I failed his final. He left me at the altar and sent his mama to tell me good-bye. I know what I suck at. But I know what I'm good at, too. And you're taking that away from me for reasons that aren't your _goddamn_ business..."

"If you sucked at cardio, would you still do it?" Hahn asked.

"Why would I do something I sucked at?" Cristina asked. "Oh, wait, this is the, 'true love is loving something even if you suck at it' thing, right?"

Hahn started to laugh and laugh and laugh. She just kept shaking her head as she laughed at Cristina, taking a long breath.

"This is really you," she said at last. "Fine, Yang. You're back on the cardio rotation."

"Why?" Cristina asked. "I mean...thanks, and if you take it away, I will cut you, but...what? Why?"

Hahn shook her head. "Explaining it to you would just get you all defensive and uptight, and that's your default state anyway," she said. "And I don't feel like pulling a Burke on you, from another angle."

"Thanks," Cristina said sourly.

"Just...final thought," Hahn said, taking a moment to take a long drink of her beer. "Maybe you don't suck at human. Maybe you just need to relax."

Cristina shrugged. "Tried it. Doesn't do me any good," she said. "And I've seen people who are good at human. It's not for me."

Hahn, to Cristina's surprise, didn't parry with another speech. She just stood up, raised her beer in an ironic sort of salute, and wandered off.

Cristina stared at the table for a long time, thinking disjointed thoughts about why she was always the target of Hahn-liked tirades. All of her mentors, even the ones who got in her pants, were always giving her crap about being human and relaxing and being someone she wasn't.

It was almost easier to listen to her mother's version, which was the straightforward, "You'll end up alone and unloved and having a heart attack from working too much when you're forty!" speech. That was all any of them were saying. She was going to end up alone, working herself to death, and you know, why was that worse than being, say, Meredith's drunk dad? Lots of people who were loved ended up ruining other people's lives in the end.

"Hey, you," Meredith said, waking Cristina up from Emo Thought Time. "What's wrong?"

"Hahn is letting me back into cardio," Cristina said. "She gave me the Be More Human lecture first. I am so over that."

"Seriously," Meredith agreed. "My dad is a drunk and he isn't very nice to Lexie, so I feel guilty as shit."

"I vote we go back to your house and drink tequila straight from the bottle," Cristina said, nodding. "I don't want to think about why everyone is compelled to inform me that my winning personality will leave me alone until I die of stress."

"Yeah, thinking is bad," Meredith agreed. "Let's go."

As they walked out of the bar, Cristina saw Hahn, chatting with Joe at the bar. Hahn glanced at her, gave a significant look at Meredith, and rolled her eyes.

Cristina almost felt herself make a realization, but instead, she made a face back at Hahn, and then turned to Meredith.

"Do you know anyone who can get us Everclear?" she asked. "I think I may need something stronger than tequila."

Meredith slung an arm over Cristina. "Don't worry. We're surgeons and junior alcoholics. We'll think of something."

Something other than, _oh, god, Hahn is right, I am totally happier being Meredith's girlfriend than with random guys_.

Cristina hoped, anyway.


End file.
